The Trouble Up North - by Travis Mulhauser

Book Synopsis

From the author of Sweetgirl, an atmospheric, haunting novel about a family of bootleggers, their troubled history, and the land that binds them.

The Sawbrooks have lived on prime real estate on the lakes of Michigan since before there was prime real estate. A family of smugglers and bootleggers, every man, woman, and child in each generation has been taught to navigate the nooks and crannies of the rivers and highways that flow in and out of Canada. The hidden routes are the family's legacy. But today, the Sawbrooks are deeply fractured, and the money that's sustained the family is running out.

Edward, the Sawbrook patriarch, is dying from cancer, and his wife, Rhoda, is bitterly disappointed in her three adult children. The eldest daughter, Lucy, is now a park ranger, working to federally protect the land against her mother's will; the middle son, Buckner, hasn't been the same since he came back from the army suffering from alcoholism; and the youngest daughter, Jewell, is wasting her potential as a card player and bartender.

When Jewell is asked to commit a crime for a major insurance payout, she agrees, eager for the cash, but too late, she realizes that that the boat she torched wasn't empty...

Together, the Sawbrooks will have to contend with the old familial ways and the new, shifting world, and face each other--and their pain-filled past--to smuggle one more thing out of their land to safety.

Review Quotes

Praise for Sweetgirl

"The perfect balance of humor and heartache...a masterful debut...as wise as it is suspenseful, as funny as it is tragic...written with guts, grit, and grace, Sweetgirl is the book you want to keep you company on a cold winter's night."--Ploughshares, Best Books of the New Year

Praise for The Trouble Up North

"Never has a fictional family so subtly mirrored the struggles of our society--addiction, environmental destruction, economic disparities, sickness, ATV's--with such humor and intelligence. Mulhauser brings to mind other lauded Michigan writers--Elmore Leonard in the pitch-perfect dialogue, Jim Harrison in the attentiveness to landscape and wildlife--but The Trouble Up North, for a novel so deeply rooted in a place, is as much a state of mind." --Michael Parker, award-winning author of Prairie Fever and I Am the Light of This World

"Sweetgirl works on so many levels, it's difficult to know how to classify it...hilarious, heartbreaking and true, a major accomplishment from an author who looks certain to have an impressive career ahead of him."--NPR

"A deeply moving tale of family ties--not just the ones we form in the present, but those that stretch back generations. It's also action-packed and laugh-out-loud funny, with characters that leap off the page. I loved it."--Alison Gaylin, USA Today bestselling author of We Are Watching

"If Bruce Springsteen grew up in Michigan with a well-thumbed library of Elmore Leonard, The Trouble Up North might be the book he'd write. Exhilarating, cinematic, and deeply felt, Mulhauser's second novel surpasses the promise of his magnificent debut."--James Tate Hill, author of Blind Man's Bluff

"Mulhauser peppers the action with jaw-dropping twists, but his real strength is in constructing three-dimensional characters whose transgressions feel both plausible and shocking. Readers won't be able to put this down."--Publishers Weekly

"Simply put, Travis Mulhauser is one of my favorite writers working today. The second you encounter his offbeat, slipstream, and lyrical prose you know that you're reading a disciple of Charles Portis, the kind of writer who always honors his characters with firebrand intelligence, knife-sharp wit, and reckless heart. I drank this novel like a series of shots - one evening of delirious page-turning. Write faster, Travis Mulhauser, the world needs more of your books."--Nickolas Butler, author of Shotgun Lovesongs and A Forty Year Kiss

"The Sawbrooks are at once totally unique and completely familiar, a family you trust in and hope and hurt for from the very first pages. I wanted to start over as soon as I finished it."--Drew Perry, author of Kids These Days and This Is Just Exactly Like You

"The Trouble Up North, with its beautiful evocation of place, and characters that will haunt you in all the best ways, grabs hold of you . . . Propulsive and layered, Mulhauser's novel is an examination of the ways we sacrifice--sometimes everything--for the ones we love."--Tita Ramirez, author of Tell It to Me Singing

"Travis Mulhauser has written a gripping novel that explores the enduring bonds that both give us strength and tear us down. The Trouble Up North is a heart-wrenching tale of family secrets and turmoil written with a profound sense of place."--Allen Eskens, bestselling author of The Life We Bury

About the Author

Travis Mulhauser was born and raised in Northern Michigan. His novel, Sweetgirl (Ecco/Harper Collins), was listed for The Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize, an Indie Next Pick, and named one of Ploughshares Best Books of the New Year. He is also the author of Greetings from Cutler County: A Novella and Stories. Travis received his MFA in Fiction from UNC-Greensboro and is also a proud graduate of North Central Michigan College and Central Michigan University. He lives currently in Durham, North Carolina with his wife and two children.